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The Latest…September 17th 2014
Apple has announced that app developers will be able to upload a 30 second video to iTunes Connect to help them stand out in the App Store, from the 17th September 2014.
Apple’s guidelines are very exacting – between 15 and 30 seconds, no humans, no hands, just clever demonstration of the app features, functionality and interface. Music, voiceovers , graphics to enhance the navigation, copy to give context are OK.
Apple is encouraging their app owners to do this themselves using tools like Quick Time player and iMovie but Wooshii’s video maker community can help.
If you include Apple App Preview in the title of your project, we will ensure that the right people have the Apple guidelines.
When posting your project select animation and ignore the budget guidance – this is a simpler project than a bespoke animation.
Download our presentation on the Google designed framework, Hero Hub Hygiene.


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Tesla Delivered A Record 343,830 Vehicles During The Third Quarter of 2022. This shows that Elon Musk‘s company has made up for a slow second quarter caused by COVID-related factory shutdowns. In a report on the company’s website, Tesla says it sold 18,672 Model S and X cars in the last quarter, while it sold 325,158 Model 3 and Y cars. During the quarter, Tesla made a total of 365,923 cars, so it still has about 20,000 cars in stock.
The automaker clarifies that some of these electric vehicles (EVs) were “in transit at the end of the quarter” and that they “have been ordered and will be delivered to customers when they arrive at their destination.” Tesla also says that it was hard to “secure vehicle transportation capacity and at a reasonable cost during these peak logistics weeks,” which is why some of the EVs still haven’t been delivered.
Elon Musk told workers last year to stop rushing to increase quarterly deliveries and instead focus on reducing costs related to shipping. Musk said the same thing in response to a Twitter user who asked him to explain more about the problems Tesla faces with getting cars to where they need to go.
Hahahah yup I hear it all the time wrt your products.
Elon, congrats to you and the Tesla team on another record breaking quarter. Could you expand on the challenges with vehicle transport mentioned in today’s production & deliveries report? Some more color would be helpful pic.twitter.com/JZdRFifc2e
— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) October 2, 2022
“Smoothing out the crazy end-of-quarter delivery wave to save money and make the Tesla team less stressed. “Trying to make deliveries more consistent within the quarter,” Musk writes on Twitter. “Customer experience suffers when there is an end of quarter rush. Steady as she goes is the right move.”
Last quarter, Tesla’s two-year streak of record-breaking deliveries came to an end when its Shanghai factory had to close several times because of the city’s COVID lockdown rules. At the time, the company had only sold 254,695 cars, which was the lowest number since the third quarter of 2021. This quarter, Tesla was able to increase production because Shanghai is no longer shut down and the new Gigafactories in Texas and Berlin have begun making cars (despite a cardboard fire).
Last week, at Tesla’s AI Day event, the company announced that 160,000 Tesla drivers now have access to its Full Self Driving beta. This is the driver-assistance software that is the subject of two lawsuits right now.
The California DMV and a Tesla owner both say that the company has made false claims about how the software can drive itself.
Jessa Martin is the author of Nogmagazine, A professional in writing by day, and novelist by night, she received her bachelor of arts in film from Howard University and her master of arts in media studies from the New School. A Brooklyn native, she is a lover of naps, cookie dough, and beaches, currently residing in the borough she loves, most likely multitasking.

domain: news


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Bahrain: Tourism sector expands
The tourism sector in Bahrain generated BD6.5 million (over US$17 million) this year, marking a 15 per cent increase over 2006.
According to the Bahraini daily Akhbar Al Khaleej, acting director of the revenue and licensing departments at the tourism sector, Huda Al Hamar said she expected the next few years to generate even more revenue as the number of hotels, restaurants and other tourist facilities continues to rise.
Meanwhile, acting tourism undersecretary at the ministry of information Fawzi Tulefat said there were more than 15 four-star and five-star hotels currently under construction in Bahrain. These hotels had chosen Bahrain owing to the "constant progress of the tourism sector in the kingdom," he said, according to the BNA. These include the Four Seasons, Sofitel, IBIS, Holiday Express, Holiday Inn, Kempinski and other top hotel chains, he conveyed. According to him, there were seven top-level hotel management companies which were to open offices in Bahrain soon.
- Bahrain: Licences issued for seven new for four- and five-star hotels and for four tourist apartment buildings
- Bahrain determined to offer ”clean” tourism
- Everyone wants to visit Bahrain: tourism 'booming'
- Bahrain looks to once-disputed islands to boost tourism
- New four-star resort hotel to be built in Bahrain


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Barcelona raises maximum fine for illegal home rental to 600,000 euros
BARCELONA city hall on Tuesday announced a 20-fold hike, to 600,000 euros (S$900,000), in the maximum fine that can be levied against home rental sites such as Airbnb if they promote illegal accommodation.
Under a 2012 regional law, any apartment rented to visitors in
CALL +65 6388 3838 EMAIL firstname.lastname@example.org


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The Panera takeover is a chance to reinvent fast food—but not in the way you think
You’ve probably never heard of JAB Holdings International, a Luxembourg-based private investment firm. But you know the brands it owns. There’s Keurig Green Mountain, the world’s biggest single-serve coffee maker. And Krispy Kreme, notorious purveyor of all things glazed. There’s a coffee shop chain based in the Midwest (Caribou Coffee), another based in the West (Peet’s) and a third based, seemingly, mostly in airports (Einstein Bros. Bagels). It also made headlines in 2015 by snapping up two of the world’s most prominent third-wave craft coffee institutions, Portland’s Stumptown Coffee Roasters and Chicago’s Intelligentsia.
It’s quite a portfolio, especially considering that JAB is also a majority stakeholder in Jacobs Douwe Egberts, one of the world’s largest “pure play” coffee companies (meaning it only sells coffee), which operates a global stable of brands from Kenco to Gevalia. But the missing piece may have fallen into place yesterday, as JAB announced its latest acquisition: Panera Bread Company, the largest fast-casual restaurant chain in the United States.
As long as Panera’s shareholders agree to the sale, JAB will pay $7.5 billion—$315 a share, a 30 percent markup—for the right to add the company to its existing $21 billion in assets.
This may turn out to be a brilliant move, though not necessarily for the reasons you’d expect. Yes, Panera’s doing pretty well—especially considering the competition. Restaurant sales have remained generally flat, leading to a flurry of takeovers earlier this year as chains try to grow by acquisition. McDonald’s, as we recently reported, has continually scaled back growth estimates. Chipotle’s woes are well-known. Panera, meanwhile, is seen on Wall Street as a rare bright spot. That’s thanks to its image makeover as a stop for healthy fare—what the company has called “craveable wellness”—as well as its Panera 2.0 initiative: piloting new, modernized restaurants with digital ordering and pickup kiosks, which have reportedly increased sales.
But JAB may be in it for more than just a thriving business. The New York Times’s Stephanie Strom and Chad Bray suggest that JAB is looking for a high-profile venue for its coffee. There could be truth to that. If you look through JAB’s holdings, a clear theme emerges: coffee, coffee, breakfast, and more coffee. (The firm was rumored to be eyeing a Dunkin’ Donuts acquisition in 2016, according to Eater.) As a bakery-café with 2,000-plus stores in the United States and plentiful breakfast options, Panera would be an attractive venue for some of JAB’s coffee products. And a collaboration could help the restaurant as well: an Intelligentsia slow-brew kiosk in the corner might help bolster Panera’s reputation as a destination for “artisanal” food. JAB has tried cross-marketing before with Coffee & Bagels, a new breakfast concept that mashed up its Einstein Bros. and Caribou brands.
The temptation to use Panera as a pedestal for existing products might be great, but evidence suggests that’s not the immediate goal. JAB is known for letting its companies operate with relative autonomy, and the company has said as much. “JAB’s investment philosophy with companies it acquires is they operate independently and continue to be managed by their management,” company spokesman Tom Johnson told USA Today. “There’s no plan to integrate with other assets in the portfolio.” Panera’s founder, Ron Shaich, will stay on as CEO, and the company will keep its leadership team intact.
Instead, the biggest impact may end up stemming from the details of the deal itself: getting bought by JAB will take Panera private. In fact, according to Shaich, who wasn’t looking for a buyer, a return to private status is the arrangement’s main appeal.
“What is hard for me is the continual pressure on the short term…two-thirds of our investors are thinking literally quarter to quarter,” Shaich told CNBC. He went on: “This is going to help us take more market share.”
Economists have long argued that publicly-traded companies can suffer from chronic short-termism. The stock market keeps businesses hooked on solutions that turn a quick, easily demonstrable profit. It can also take big ideas and longer plays off the table. Plans to stall growth for a few years, for the sake of larger gains later, are likely to generate shareholder outcry.
By going private, Panera will free itself from the quarterly cycle‚ which could allow it to think much bigger. The company still has to answer to JAB, of course, which will expect a nice return on the many billions it plans to spend. But JAB describes itself as a company “focused on long term investments in companies with premium brands.” It’s the kind of owner, in other words, that can afford to be patient, and will tolerate grand gestures when they’re worth the wait.
So what might Panera try to do? Well, since the company has made its name by pitching itself as a purveyor of a better-for-you food, the obvious thing would be to double down on that message. Though soups and salads are surely healthier than burgers and donuts, for now its efforts have been pretty facile: so far, the main initiative has been to eliminate artificial colors and flavors from their menu. That’s a pretty low bar, one that Chipotle recently mocked in its “Spot the Impostor” promotion; in its view, unlike Chipotle, Panera is still using “natural” varieties of the same food additives they demonize. Whatever. Artificial colors and flavors, and their naturally-derived counterparts, aren’t an especially urgent health issue. Both companies are still engaged in something much more substantive, and worse: using marketing language to give a karmic markup to the same old industrially produced food.
Now, Panera may have an opportunity to do something really exciting. Unlike Chipotle, it might have the leeway to pioneer new purchasing practices. It could build alternative supply chains. It could, without shareholders breathing down its neck, find new ways to serve food that really is better.
Not that going private is everything. Subway is privately owned. Chick Fil-A is, too. Burger King, as of 2010, is owned by 3G Holdings, the multibillion-dollar Brazilian investment firm. If you haven’t noticed, these companies still struggle to reinvent their brands—let alone the entire industry.
Still, Panera’s whole pitch is that it’s different. That it’s modern. That it’s better. It’s finally going to have a chance to go beyond the marketing, and take a shot at the real thing.


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New Electric Charging Partnership
ChargeNet New Zealand and Aurora Energy are partnering together to extend a charging network for electric vehicles in Dunedin, Central Otago and Queenstown lakes. Aurora Energy is New Zealand’s seventh largest electricity network by customer connections, supplying electricity to more than 88,000 homes, farms and businesses in Dunedin, Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes. ChargeNet NZ is the only organisation installing a nationwide network of rapid charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. It is also the largest privately owned and operated DC fast charger network in the Southern Hemisphere. The partnership will mean faster growth in the Southern region. “The Otago region is one of the most active regions in the country in terms of embracing electric vehicles, and we are keen to support electric vehicle owners through this partnership with Aurora Energy,” said Nick Smith, Chief Operating Officer of ChargeNet NZ. The agreement between the two organisations means an upgrade to the existing charger in Filleul St, Dunedin, to a Tritium charger supplied by ChargeNet. Other sites around the Dunedin CBD are also being considered for new installations. “Extending the Dunedin and surrounding offerings is an important step in bolstering our ever-growing nationwide network of fast chargers and will be a game changer for both local and visiting electric vehicle owners.” “The sites will complement the existing infrastructure in the Aurora Energy network, including Wanaka and Alexandra, and other installations underway in Queenstown and Roxburgh.” “With most electric vehicles taking between six to eight hours to charge via a domestic power point, one of the challenges has been the ability to charge them when away from home, but the fast charge network which we are putting in place will allow electric vehicle owners to charge a vehicle in less than 25 minutes,” he says. Aurora Energy is also delighted in the partnership as it will allow vehicle owners in Dunedin and wider Otago region greater confidence to make the move to driving electric said Grady Cameron, Chief Executive of Aurora Energy. “We expect the new partnership will support further electric vehicle uptake across our network area and encourage even more people to make the switch to electric vehicles. “Since Aurora Energy installed the South Island’s first public fast charging station in February 2016, the number of electric vehicles in Otago has increased from 50 to 225. Nationwide, the growth in electric vehicles has been exponential with 5,400 now registered in New Zealand, up from just 500 three years ago. “Electric vehicles are an increasingly attractive option for New Zealand drivers and are cheaper, cleaner and quieter to run than traditional petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles,” added Mr Cameron. There are 57 chargers connected to ChargeNet’s network nationwide, at 30 November 2017 and they aim to have over 105 stations by the end of 2018.


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Neal James has tried to fix the roof of his container, which robbers broke into.
GEORGE NEWS - Business owners at Masakhane Mall in Lawaaikamp are concerned about the state of their business premises and the continuous vandalism that is taking place in the area.
Neal James, who has been running a barbershop at the mall for more than 10 years, said his business has been burgled approximately 35 times and he has reported the matter to the relevant authorities numerous times.
"There’s no security guard or fencing at the premises, which makes it easy for criminals to break in and take our valuable equipment. When we arrive in the morning, we sometimes find that our businesses have been broken into, but we can’t identify who is responsible for this as we don’t have security cameras and this makes it difficult for the police to find the perpetrators," said James.
According to James, the situation is getting worse and owners might be forced to close their businesses.
But vandalism and break-ins are not their only problems as they are also faced with toilets that are blocked, do not work and have no doors. "The smell that is coming out in the toilets is unbearable."
"You must bear in mind that we have a butchery and braai meat close to these smelly toilets. Robbers also use these toilets as hideouts and some find shelter there at night. We ask the municipality to assist us with fencing and to install security cameras," said James.
According to Debra Sauer, George Municipality assistant media liaison officer, Masakhane Mall is intended to provide opportunities for small entrepreneurs to establish themselves in the market and to create additional business opportunities. The aim was for the businesses located on the property to provide necessary services and goods to consumers and provide an opportunity to address the needs of the community.
"The lease agreement with the Masakhane Mall Tenant Association was not renewed in 2005 because they failed to pay the required service charges. It is advised that the individual businesses approach the Local Economic Development Department at the George Municipality regarding their initiatives," said Sauer.
Sauer added that the George Municipality makes use of bakkie contractors and a rubbish removal team to clean the area at the Masakhane Mall on a weekly basis.
"Our Cleansing Department had a very successful special cleansing operation at the Masakhane Mall in February this year," said Sauer.
ARTICLE AND PHOTOS: ZOLANI SINXO, GEORGE HERALD JOURNALIST
'We bring you the latest George, Garden Route news'


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Cultural appropriation has become so endemic in fashion, particularly the runway, that a conversation simply isn’t cutting it. Although that’s absolutely essential for obvious reasons, it’s time for folks of all ethnicities, gender, & age to take initiative instead of just inclusion. Why? Because designers like Marc Jacobs aren’t standing up and asking themselves what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.
— Maya Fleming (@mayanfleming) September 14, 2017
His latest SS18 show sparked outrage amongst people who believed his use of headscarves was, in fact, in line with cultural appropriation.
So, why is there outrage over the runway?
I write that headline as a white person. The MEFeater team 100% sees the issue at hand and what’s going on but let’s be very aware that there are people out there shrugging their shoulders. They’re reading this saying ‘it’s just a headscarf, what’s the problem?’ and ‘what meaning is there to such a furor?’ Cultural appropriation is defined as, at its most basic level, robbery by a high-classed group from a minority; stealing one’s culture for the others gain, in other words. For his SS17 runway show, Marc Jacobs had the designated hair stylist, Guido Palau, sport largely white models with pastel-colored dreadlocks. This caused great disgust and if we go by the origins of dreadlocks & headwraps and understand why then rightly so.
As written by Helen Bradley Griebel of the University of Pennsylvania (which can be read in full here): ”THE AFRICAN AMERICAN headwrap holds a distinctive position in the history of American dress both for its longevity and for its potent significations. It endured the travails of slavery and never passed out of fashion. The headwrap represents far more than a piece of fabric wound around the head…Worn by millions of enslaved women and their descendants has served as a uniform of communal identity; but at its most elaborate, the African American woman’s headwrap has functioned as a ‘uniform of rebellion’ signifying absolute resistance to loss of self-definition.”
The significance of the headwrap also plays an integral role in many other cultures. The African/American culture is taken as an example here.
Solving fashion’s cultural appropriation
The fashion industry has a massive responsibility. What one does as a designer with their free reign matters but the consequences matter more here; it’s THE matter of importance. Unfortunately, a mixed reaction has emerged to this latest fashion blunder but there’s significance when there are people that call out cultural appropriation and that’s the point. Designers need to listen more. Marc Jacobs issued an apology last year for his use of dreadlocks but failed to learn his lesson it seems. Let’s be honest, there may not be a solution to solving what a designer does and doesn’t do with their collections. This issue is about respect and if we can recognize a failure to adhere to basic values and principles and in turn, highlight why the use of historic symbols are inappropriate, then we’ve all contributed to a resolution.


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Gamasutra reports that THQ has told Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter that the company is reshifting focus towards “low-cost Triple-A” titles as well as free-to-play games. More information is included after the jump.
Despite having announced higher-than-expected sales for Undisputed 3, the company told Pachter that the game has failed to break the 2-million mark that was required for the game to break even. As a result, THQ recently closed the studio that had been working on the franchise and sold the UFC license to EA. From now on, the company will pursue triple-A titles that require a smaller investment than their previous titles.
One of THQ’s upcoming titles, Obsidian Entertainment’s Southpark: The Stick of Truth, will also need sell 2 million copies in order to break even, but has reportedly been cheaper to produce than other titles due to the simplicity of the animations in the game.
Though the publisher currently doesn’t have any free-to-play titles lined up, it is looking to make this a significant portion of the company’s business with the coming of the next generation of consoles.


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Amazon tests its first drone delivery and it took 13 minutes
12:14 PM ET Wed, 14 Dec 2016
the latest Flash player
and try again.
Amazon unveils its first ever drone delivery service called Prime Air.
Macron vows to transform France into a 'start-up nation'
‘One of the most sustainable farming enterprises’ meets hi-tech
Produce farming with drones
Connecting cows to the Cloud
Weather protecting crops using cloud computing
The world of virtual entertainment
Gaming in the Cloud
AI generated movie trailer
Making live music using cloud computing
Wikipedia founder's view on Brexit
Why 5G will have a major impact on consumers
Bringing telecoms into the digital age
Challenges for telecoms in Asia
The future of health care technology
Tech City boss talks future trends
Training code-breakers to fight terrorism
Helicopter market focuses on tech
Unumotors' electric scooter at Web Summit
Hi Tech in food production
Holy Trinity at the Web Summit
MysteryVibe could launch a whole new industry
Web Summit 2015 is now open
Reduce Co2 emissions with Nexcel
This robot will cook your dinner!
Next trend in drones? Nano!
Concept car inspired by video game
Mercedes-Benz unveil amazing self-driving car
Can this car beat Tesla?
It's the battle of the TVs
Can Samsung beat the Apple Watch?


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“Rolling coal” is a vile act and one of the many deviant behaviors commonly displayed by people who operate motor vehicles.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, let us explain how it works.
Imagine you’re out enjoying a nice bike ride on a beautiful road. Then the driver of a large diesel truck comes up next to you and purposely slams on the gas pedal to emit a huge plume of toxic black exhaust right in your face.
We told you it was vile. But unfortunately it happens more than you might think.
Everyone knows Multnomah County is growing, and that most new residents are buying or bringing in cars, too. In all, state records show, 8,709 more passenger vehicles are registered in the county than there were in 2007.
But a review of car registration statistics shows that if passenger vehicle ownership were still as popular in the county as it was in 2007, it would have had to find room for 38,501 more cars and trucks instead.
How many cars are we doing without? Well, if we built a parking lot to hold the 38,501 cars that didn’t show up and assumed a standard 325 square feet per space, we’d need about 287 acres of land. For the sake of scale, that’s everything between NE Killingsworth, Skidmore, Rodney and 16th:
Biking in America suffers from a major image problem. Bike riders are rarely seen as cool, conquering heros in movies or advertisements the way auto users are. While we do our activism and political lobbying here and there, it has very limited impact when our entire culture is consumed by media that makes automobiles look like sexy, must-have products.
Many car commercials are fake, mean-spirited, and promote dangerous driving; but with billions of dollars to spend, the auto industry knows how to win the hearts and minds of Americans. The bike industry? Not so much. More often than not bike advertisements focus too much on racing or too much on the corny stuff bike advocates love but that non-believers (an important marketing target) can’t relate to or simply don’t care about. Granted, the marketing budget of the entire bike industry is probably equal to what Ford spends on office coffee for a week. But still.
The Great Recession has left plenty of marks on the Portland area. Here’s one of the happier ones: so far, at least, a lot of the cars aren’t coming back.
The number of registered passenger vehicles in Multnomah County peaked in 2007, a review of 16 years of state records shows. After the economy began shrinking in early 2008, passenger vehicles per resident started a rapid slide, landing 9 percent lower by 2012. Finally, in 2013 and 2014, the local economy began a relatively rapid rebound out of one of the sharpest local downturns in the country.
But in those two years, the number of vehicles the average Multnomah County resident registers has edged back up just 1 percent.
a Prius owner, I can only imagine what
they think of bicycle riders.
(Photo from Rollin Coal & Raisin Hell
Prepare to be depressed about the current state of civic relations here in America…
Remember our two recent reports about “rolling coal”? That’s when someone who owns a truck drives it close to another road user and then purposely spews a huge cloud of black exhaust fumes at them. We first reported about it after a man claimed he was a victim of it while riding near Mt. Tabor back in February. Rolling coal made our front page again last month when a truck driver did the same thing to a group of people riding bikes in Beaverton. In that case, one of the people on bikes turned out to be an off-duty Washington County Sheriff deputy who then pulled the driver over. (Note, we initially reported that it was a member of the Beaverton Bicycle Patrol Unit and have since learned that was incorrect.)
Fast-forward a few weeks and it seems “rolling coal” has broken through beyond YouTube videos and truck enthusiast forums and onto the major online news media. Stories this week on Talking Points Memo, Slate, Huffington Post, and other outlets have brought the behavior out of the shadows. [Read more…]
writing up the truck driver in a parking lot
off SW Murray Blvd.
A man driving a truck along SW Murray Road in Beaverton yesterday thought it’d fun to harass a group of bike riders; but he got more than he bargained for.
According to a Reddit user named “Scolgan”, the man driving the truck pulled close the riders and then as he pulled away, “he really got on the gas and covered them in a big black cloud of diesel exhaust.” What he didn’t know is that one of the people on bikes was an off-duty Washington County Sheriff deputy.
Here’s more from Scolgan:[Read more…]
Getting hassled on the road for no other reason than simply being on a bike is unfortunately relatively common here in the United States. Usually it involves someone yelling at you, or honking, or revving their engine, or all of the above.
But yesterday we heard of a disturbing new method of anti-bike road rage: a smoke screen that sends a huge black cloud from a truck’s tailpipe. We’re not talking about someone intentionally revving their engine and sending a bunch of exhaust into your face (that’s bad enough, and yes, it’s all too common) — what happened to reader John M. Tuesday night was worse.
John says the incident happened while riding near the Mt. Tabor reservoir. Here’s his account:[Read more…]
Scion has pulled an ad that referred to people riding bicycles as “obstacles.” The ad, which we highlighted on July 11th, had a fighting theme and the “King of the road” was its tC model sportscar.
Over the weekend, a reader pointed us to a blog post on Scion.com (which seems to be incorrectly dated to July 2nd), where the company addressed the concerns about the ad and announced its removal:[Read more…]
in a fight you must win, says a Scion ad.
Toyota-owned car brand Scion has unveiled a new commercial for their latest model. In an urban setting, they equate driving with a boxing match where the car is dubbed “King” of the road. Unfortunately, Scion includes a scene with people riding bicycles and refers to them as “obstacles” and then shows the cars zoom by them dangerously — all in an effort to “roll on to victory with the path of least resistance.”


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Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts celebrates its 40th anniversary this year and to mark this milestone, Shangri-La invites all its Facebook friends and fans to enjoy a complimentary meal on their birthday at any of the hotels' operated restaurants in any city throughout the year.
On 23 April 1971, the group's first hotel – Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore – opened its doors and marked the birth of Shangri-La. Today, Shangri-La operates 70 Shangri-La and Traders hotels and has a robust international pipeline of over 40 projects under development.
Visitors can simply register on Shangri-La's Facebook fans-only page to enjoy the special offer. From the Michelin-starred Petrus at Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong and Nadaman at Shangri-La Hotel, Tokyo to Altitude Restaurant at Shangri-La Hotel, Sydney, there are more than 300 restaurants to choose from.
"In just six months, Shangri-La's Facebook family has grown to over 95,000 fans. This is our way to say thank you to our loyal guests and patrons at our hotels worldwide," said Kent Zhu, group director of sales and marketing of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts. "Since we launched the offer on Facebook in December 2010, over 2,500 of our friends have already registered for their birthday treat."
The offer is valid on the birthday of the Shangri-La Facebook fan only until 31 December 2011. Pre-registration is essential and the offer is subject to availability. Full details, terms and conditions are available on the fans-only page.


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As i’m sure you all have heard the news about Kobe Bryant and his season ending injury. An injury that also put a huge damper on the debut of a new PE colorway of the Nike Kobe 8 System Elite. Designed for Laker home games, the shoe rocked a white-base with purple and gold accents, and a healthy amount of black with a translucent rubber outsole.
Though Lakers fans are sitting on pins and needles as they wonder what’s next for their beloved team, Kobe remains optimistic despite the recent turn of events. “It’s fueling me, it’s fueling me,” Bryant said about recovery. “I can feel it already. It’s just players at this stage of their career, they pop Achilles and the pundits say they never come back the same. So I can hear it already and it’s pissing me off right now thinking about it.”
Sneakerheads make sure you check out the pics of this latest pair of Kobe 8 System Elites in action and let us know what you think. Best wishes to the Black Mamba, we wish you a speedy recovery.
Via Yahoo Sports


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Today Facebook announced a very interesting new feature; the subscribe button. It’s designed to allow individuals to make their public updates available to other individuals, aka “subscribers” without requiring a reciprocal friend relationship.
If this sounds like Twitter, it’s because it’s very much like Twitter. I suspect Google+ will follow suit soon with a similar concept.
I think this is a great feature, and would be even greater if it was available to Pages.
However Facebook will probably not make this available to Pages for a simple reason: Facebook doesn’t want to give marketers a short-cut into their Fan’s Newsfeeds. That’s what ads are for.
Lets see if Google is more business friendly.


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A delegation of chief ministers of five BJP ruled states will be led by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on a visit to the Russian Far East this month (August), reports The Economic Times. The aim of the delegation is to pave the way for the expansion on Indian presence in the region.
Moreover, the delegation’s visit will serve as an important precursor to the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Vladivostok in September as the chief guest of the 20th edition of the Eastern Economic Forum.
The chief ministers who will accompanying Goyal will be Uttar Pradesh’s Yogi Adityanath, Gujarat’s Vijay Rupani, Maharashtra’s Devendra Fadnavis, Goa’s Pramod Sawant and Haryana’s Manohar Lal. A business delegation as well as a representative from the Assam government will also travel along with the delegation for the visit.
The Russian Far East is a resource-rich region which the Russian government is aiming to develop rapidly with the help of foreign investment; Indian companies could take advantage of large tax breaks in the region to employ many Indian workers in projects they set up there.
China is also already heavily involved in the Russian Far East, and it is likely that the Russian government wants to create a balance with Indian investment in the region so that they are not overwhelmed by Chinese influence.
As you are no doubt aware, Swarajya is a media product that is directly dependent on support from its readers in the form of subscriptions. We do not have the muscle and backing of a large media conglomerate nor are we playing for the large advertisement sweep-stake.
Our business model is you and your subscription. And in challenging times like these, we need your support now more than ever.
We deliver over 10 - 15 high quality articles with expert insights and views. From 7AM in the morning to 10PM late night we operate to ensure you, the reader, get to see what is just right.
Becoming a Patron or a subscriber for as little as Rs 1200/year is the best way you can support our efforts.


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According to a survey conducted by the International Association of Home Staging Professionals and StagedHomes.com, 95 percent of ASP staged homes sell in 11 days or less on average. They also sell for 17 percent more, proving the staging process is a key ingredient to achieving not only the sale of your home, but getting the best price.
Here are seven expert tips for getting your home ready:
Expert agents are seeing three main groups of people looking to make a home purchase – and have developed the strategies for marketing listings directly to these groups. Here’s a peek into what’s happening, and a look at this week’s new listings.
Citing a strong market and favorable interest rates, sellers are listing their homes in beautiful neighborhoods across Fort Worth. The homes below are new on the market and ready to welcome owners looking for a smart investment. Continue Reading…


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All insurance aggregator articles
Since the Supreme Court’s January decision in the FCA’s test case around Covid-19-related business interruption (BI) claims, a total of £756,846,662 has been paid out by insurers for either interim or final BI claims payments across 20,347 claims, according to updated data published by the FCA yesterday (14 June 2021). ...
With businesses opening up again post-lockdown, there is more to be done around business interruption (BI) insurance, said an expert panel at Biba’s resilience-themed conference last week .
Competition watchdog’s report into ComparetheMarket offers a damning verdict on a company abusing its power


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Columbia Police Respond to Barber Shop Robbery
COLUMBIA - Columbia Police responded to a robbery at 711 Vandiver Drive on Friday night in which three suspects entered a barber shop.
Police said three suspects, two of them armed, wore all black clothing and ski masks and demanded money at Pro Kutz around 6:45 p.m. Friday.
Police said the suspects fled on foot in unknown directions, and it is unknown how much money or property were taken. Police said the victims refused to cooperate with law enforcement.
There is no further information available in the case. Pro Kutz opened on Vandiver on Dec. 1.


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Myanmar garment industry would export cut-make-pack (CMP) products to markets in the US, Canada and Russia in addition to those in Japan, South Korea and the EU, according to the Myanmar Garment Industry 10-year Strategy (2015-2024).
Since 2010, Japan has been the largest buyer of Myanmar garments. It was only last year that Myanmar exported more than $580 million worth of garments. Before 2003, Myanmar mainly exported garments to the US. Export earnings amounted to $1.6 billion. Currently, the garment industry is operating under the CMP system. The country plans to operate 1,500 garment factories by 2025 and employ one million staffers. Export value is expected to reach $10 billion. Myint Soe, Chair of the Myanmar Garment Entrepreneurs Association explains they want to shift from the CMP to the FOB (free-on-board) production system.
The Myanmar garment industry’s export earnings stood at $912 million in 2012. Over the next 10 years, exports from the country are expected to be in the range between $8 billion to $10 billion.


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DEARBORN – While much of the focus of Lincoln’s relaunch has been on the expansion of sales into China, the luxury brand is well-accustomed to the global stage. It’s actually been a global player for decades, and is currently sold in more than 30 countries throughout the Middle East and Central America, along with South Korea and Puerto Rico.
However, while it was previously available only in limited volumes in most countries, Ford Export and Growth (E&G) is laying the groundwork for a greatly expanded presence, strategically relaunching the upscale brand in select markets, and using many of the initiatives expected to drive Lincoln’s success elsewhere.
Azhar Piracha, E&G’s newly appointed Lincoln manager, says they are advising dealers to establish product and customer experience differentiation between Lincoln and Ford. “The goal is to reinforce Lincoln’s status as a premium brand that is relevant in today’s marketplace, one that reflects who customers are, what they stand for and what they aspire to be.”
Within E&G, as wherever Lincoln is sold, the facility, people and processes must provide the luxury experience customers expect from a premium brand.
Not every market is able to support a luxury brand, and Lincoln vehicles won’t be available in all locations. In markets where a luxury brand is a viable option, business is on the upswing. “Globally, the premium industry is projected to grow by more than 2 million vehicles by 2017,” says Scott Kalass, E&G franchising manager. “Lincoln isn’t going to try to be all things to all people, but everything to a select few.”
Dealers will be expected to offer unique customer benefits or perks to help differentiate Ford and Lincoln and establish Lincoln as a separate brand, with luxury as the key differentiator. E&G’s Lincoln team will work one-on-one with dealers to develop ways to achieve this objective.
As part of the reinvention of Lincoln, the Lincoln pillars QDP – Quality, Design and Personal Service – will drive the transformation. E&G will work closely with the new Lincoln Advisory Board, a group of the top five E&G Lincoln dealers who will meet monthly to develop a plan to grow the brand. In addition, Lincoln now has its own design center and advertising agency (Hudson Rouge).
A major focus is the necessity of attracting new buyers – those who do not currently own a Lincoln or Ford – in order to grow Lincoln, while winning back former owners and hanging onto current ones. To help accomplish this, dealers will need to deliver the levels of personal service luxury customers expect.
This will include a variation of the Lincoln Commitment Program recently launched in the United States. The program’s parameters are being developed in consultation with dealers and will evolve over time, with Ford providing training needed for key process improvements.
The company as well as dealers will need to pay close attention to details. Jerry Schoenle, advertising and launch manager, says the company is making a sizeable investment to help dealers succeed. “This will include a Lincoln-dedicated customer assistance center, so when customers reach out to us, they will receive a luxury treatment that parallels their dealership experience.”
Schoenle says the company has launched Lincoln desktop web sites, as well as mobile sites, in the Middle East, South Korea and Puerto Rico. It is also investing millions of dollars to launch the Lincoln MKZ across multiple channels in the Middle East in September and in South Korea, where the luxury car’s Asian debut generated substantial media attention and positive reviews and sales are off to a strong start. South Korea and the Middle East will be E&G’s largest Lincoln markets.
The Lincoln brand launch is occurring in multiple phases, with dealers involved in setting the standards throughout the process.


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Friday, July 28, 2017
NYTimes Reports Strong Digital Growth
The company said on Thursday that digital advertising revenue in the second quarter rose 23 percent, to $55 million. That represents nearly 42 percent of total advertising revenue, compared with 34 percent in the same quarter last year.
The company also added 93,000 net digital-only subscriptions for its news products, driving revenue in that category to $83 million, a 46 percent increase over the same period a year ago.
Including subscriptions for its crossword product, The Times has more than 2.3 million digital-only subscriptions.
Print advertising remained a challenge, as it has across the industry. Revenue in that category fell 11 percent in the quarter, to $77 million. But total advertising revenue, bolstered by strong growth on the digital side, bucked an industry trend and grew slightly, to $132 million, from $131 million in the same quarter last year.
Posted 3:37:00 AM


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A newly designed iPod shuffle may be in the pipeline, with the current component makers being left out of the equation.
American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu has downgraded shares of both SigmaTel and Asustek. SigmaTel supplies Apple with digital music decoder chips used in the iPod shuffle. Asustek is Apple's iPod shuffle manufacturing partner.
Wu has downgraded SigmaTel shares from HOLD to SELL, one reason for this is that he believes "there is potential risk that AAPL's yet-to-be announced new and improved entry-level iPod will not utilise SGTL."
Wu also raises concerns about Asustek. That company has "declined to below 10 per cent of revenue, meaning business at Apple was likely down sequentially, despite strong iPod shuffle sales." The analyst still recommends Apple as a BUY.


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Amazon had a quiet week after last week’s mega tech-fest. Lots of fallout and some interesting ‘so this means…’ pieces for the cardboard abuser to ignore. Amazon Go had a busy week with the WSJ first disclosing Amazon has signed a dozen leases in the LA, CA area with others in Chicago and Philadelphia. According to Retail Gazette, the stores will be a different concept to Amazon Go.
The company now has 16 Amazon Go stores, where customers can grab ready-to-eat food and grocery purchases checkout-free. It also has four Amazon 4-star stores, which stock products rated 4-stars and above on the Amazon site, and 18 Amazon Books stores.
Revenue from these bricks-and-mortar businesses is small but edging up. In the second quarter, net sales from Amazon’s physical stores rose 1% to $4.3 billion from a year earlier, compared with 16% growth recorded in its online stores, according to Amazon’s earnings statement. Sales in its physical stores include items that customers select in the store, but exclude purchases made online and picked up at a store.
CNBC revealed that Amazon is in talks with OTG’s CIBO Express stores at airports and Cineworld’s Regal theaters which set the retail world ablaze with guffaws and paper being thrown in the air despite no ink yet on the deals. Arguably this move could have been predicted by anyone with a pulse but the speed at which it has come (since most people have never even seen the Amazon Go logo, let alone been near a store) is what rattled the execs.
The effort would help Amazon grow its retail presence so the company can lower its reliance on online shopping, but at a faster pace and at lower cost than building its own stores. Simultaneously it might help Amazon form bonds with companies that would ordinarily consider Amazon the competition. That type of collaboration could lead to further growth of Amazon’s cloud business.
Amazon already has 16 branded Go stores where customers scan their phones, grab products off of shelves and then walk out and receive a receipt for whatever they took with them. Amazon is eager to place the underlying components for that experience inside other companies’ stories to speed up transactions, three people told CNBC.
CNBC has the story.
Amazon (along with Facebook and Google) will face another house committee hearing about their impact on SME’s led by House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez. Ahead of Q3 earnings, the hearing is another in the long line of legal proceedings that Amazon (and pals) face on a variety of issues that surrounding impact and competition. Grab your popcorn, Velázquez isn’t messing around, she’s here for the little guy.
The hearing, which the committee hopes to hold in late October or early November, would be the latest front in the government’s probe of the companies that already face investigations from the House Antitrust Subcommittee, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department.
“Chairwoman Velázquez believes that small businesses deserve to compete on a level playing field and hopes the hearing will be an opportunity for the committee to examine how small businesses are faring given the dominance of big tech companies in areas ranging from e-commerce to internet traffic,” Evelyn Quartz, a spokeswoman for the New York Democrat, said in an email.
Bloomberg has the story.
WANT MORE? ‘Amazon Primed’ is a short recap of the larger stories that dominated the headlines this week surrounding everyone’s favourite cardboard abuser, Amazon. If you want the full, deep look at what Amazon is doing every week, subscribe (paid) to the weekly ‘What Did Amazon Do This Week‘ newsletter (called ‘Obsessive…in the very best way.”). Want to find out more about Amazon’s biggest competitor? Make sure grab a ticket to www.thetbdconference.com (London, Dec 6)


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(Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks advanced as companies from Apple Inc. to Time Warner Inc. and Intel Corp. rallied amid deals and earnings reports while data showed China’s second- quarter economic growth topped estimates.
Time Warner surged 17 percent as Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc. made a takeover bid that was rebuffed. Intel gained 5.9 percent as its third-quarter sales forecast fueled optimism the personal-computer market is emerging from a two- year slump. Apple and International Business Machines Corp. rose at least 1.1 percent after agreeing to develop applications for corporate users of wireless devices.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.4 percent to 1,981.04 at 10:13 a.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 55.39 points, or 0.3 percent, to 17,116.07. Trading in S&P 500 companies was 56 percent above the 30-day average for this time of day.
“We’ve had some pretty positive news and developments for two of the bigger market cap companies in the S&P, and that’s spilling over into the market overall,” Michael James, a Los Angeles-based managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities Inc., said in a phone interview, referring to Intel and Time Warner. “It’s given a better tone to the market and is carrying sentiment.”
Fourteen companies in the S&P 500 including EBay Inc. and Yum! Brands Inc. are reporting second-quarter results today. Profit by the gauge’s members increased 4.5 percent in the quarter, and revenue rose 3.1 percent, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Intel climbed 5.9 percent, the most in the Dow. The PC market has shown signs of improvement this year as corporate spending picked up and U.S. shipments returned to growth. Intel’s outlook indicates demand is starting to recover among consumers, who may be buying laptops and desktops again after years of opting for smartphones and tablets instead.
Intel also added $20 billion to its stock-repurchase program, including $4 billion planned for the third quarter.
Time Warner surged 17 percent to $83.42. 21st Century Fox made an $80 billion takeover bid in recent weeks for Time Warner that was rebuffed, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the matter whom it didn’t identify. Fox indicated that it would sell CNN to ward off potential antitrust concerns since Fox News competes directly with CNN, the newspaper said. Fox confirmed the proposal. The company is prepared to offer more than $85 a share for Time Warner Inc., according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Fox shares fell 2 percent.
“This M&A just seems to have taken off, not that it was dead before, it just seems to be almost a daily event,” said Timothy Ghriskey, chief investment officer at New York-based Solaris Asset Management LLC, in a phone interview. “A bid for something like Time Warner, that’s big news. A takeover environment creates a lift to the markets. Everyone is looking for the next big name.”
Apple rose 1.1 percent and IBM gained 1.5 percent to $191.99. The deal enables the iPhone maker to expand beyond individual customers and add more corporate clients through IBM’s sales force. IBM gets a boost in its effort to sell software and services to companies seeking to manage workers’ wireless devices.
International Game Technology jumped 8.1 percent. Rome- based Gtech SpA agreed to buy the world’s biggest slot-machine maker for $4.7 billion.
Bank of America Corp. dropped 2.2 percent. The second- biggest U.S. bank said profit declined 43 percent as it spent $4 billion to cover litigation costs, including a mortgage settlement with American International Group Inc.
Yahoo! Inc. fell 4.1 percent. The U.S. Web portal reported second-quarter earnings and sales that fell short of analysts’ estimates.
The S&P 500 has rallied 7.2 percent this year amid better- than-estimated corporate earnings and central bank stimulus. The U.S. economy is showing signs of recovering from a 2.9 percent contraction in the first quarter.
Data today showed China’s economic growth accelerated for the first time in three quarters. Gross domestic product rose 7.5 percent in the April-June period from a year earlier, beating the 7.4 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of economists.
U.S. industrial production climbed 0.2 percent in June, capping the strongest quarter in almost four years and indicating manufacturers are providing a bigger spark for the U.S. economy. The gain in output at factories, mines and utilities followed a revised 0.5 percent advance in May, figures from the Fed showed today. A separate report indicated that wholesale prices in the U.S. rose more than forecast in June, reflecting a jump in energy costs that is now abating.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen said yesterday in testimony to the Senate Banking Committee that the central bank must press on with monetary stimulus as “significant slack” remains in labor markets and inflation is still below the Fed’s goal.
Three rounds of Fed bond-buying have helped propel the S&P 500 higher by more than 190 percent during the current five-year bull market.
The S&P 500 fell 0.2 percent yesterday and the Russell 2000 Index lost 1 percent after the Fed said valuations for smaller social-media and biotechnology companies are substantially stretched. Small-caps and Internet shares were the biggest victims of a market retreat earlier this year as investors dumped the best performers of the bull market amid concern valuations advanced too far.
Seven of 10 main industries in the S&P 500 advanced today. Technology companies jumped 1 percent as a group. The Dow Jones Internet Composite Index increased 0.1 percent after slumping 0.7 percent yesterday. TripAdvisor Inc., Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. rebounded more than 0.9 percent.
“I think Yellen might have derailed a few things yesterday, but today it’s back to earnings again and rightfully so,” Richard Sichel, chief investment officer at Philadelphia Trust Co., said in a phone interview. “Earnings season is a big deal and you have a couple of big names that have looked good with many, many to come.”
–With assistance from Anna Hirtenstein in London.


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If you have followed fashion over the past twenty years, you know that Tom Ford is one of the most exclusive designers in the industry.
The former creative director of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent has become an icon among fashion elite and celebrities, even having songs written about his exclusive designs like “Tom Ford” by Jay-Z.
Over the years, Mr. Ford has only sold his accessories and beauty online via his e-commerce site TomFord.com.
All of that will change this week, as he embarks on a new venture with the luxury e-commerce site Net-a-porter.
In this exclusive partnership, which launches this week on July 15th, Ford will be selling and edited list of his Women’s ready to wear line on the site. Menswear will be launching on Mr. Porter in September.
Previously, his clothing has been secluded to his brick and mortar boutiques and luxury department stores around the world.According to an interview with WWD, Vice President of Net-a-Porter global buying, Sarah Rouston, Net-a-porter is confident about the partnership.
“Net-a-porter is extremely strong in selling designer merchandise online and obviously Tom Ford ready-to-wear online, bags and shoes is a massive draw for our customer. We’ve got a proven track record of selling at this level, especially brands that either have very limited e-commerce themselves or no e-commerce.”
The decision to delve into e-commerce is one that many fashion houses are now venturing. In a society that is plugged in and logged on constantly, not being a part of e-commerce is one of the worst decisions a company can make.
Investing in e-commerce opens brands to a wide range of worldwide consumers that were otherwise, ignored. In his past, Tom Ford’s sleek, sexy designs were enough to resurrect the design house of Gucci.
Though his brand is in no way struggling, it will be interesting to see how this partnership plays out. Soon people in all corners of the world will be “rocking” Tom Ford.


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It was billed as one of the busiest shopping days of the year. ABBY ALFORD hit the high street to find out if the sales lived up to all the hype
SHOPPERS and retailers were banking on bargains to put a smile on their faces today as more stores slashed their prices in an attempt to cash in on post-Christmas spending.
Queues were expected outside Next and Marks and Spencer on Queen Street, Cardiff, as they began their sales, but hundreds of canny consumers have already grabbed a good deal.
Caroline Thomas, store manager at River Island on Queen Street, told the Echo more than 600 people queued in the cold yesterday, waiting for the doors to open at 9am.
“I know that the first customer had been queuing since 6.45am,” she said.
“It was one of the busiest Boxing Days we had experienced.”
Shoppers were also out in force early on Boxing Day at Debenhams in St David’s Centre, which opened its doors at 7am, and Howells on St Mary Street.
Howells general manager Manda Sharp said the sales boost experienced by many retailers in the run-up to Christmas Day had continued.
“The whole week has been fantastic from Sunday onwards,” she said.
“We had a queue at the door yesterday morning, which is great to see at 8am.
“They were in and shopping very early. My prediction is that we will probably break some kind of record this week.”
Bargain hunters also waited patiently to get into Primark on Queen Street early yesterday, where dad-of-six Younes Bakhbakhi splashed out.
Having started his sales shopping in Debenhams at 7am, the 48-year-old taxi driver, of Adamsdown, Cardiff, managed to make his way around half a dozen shops by 10.30am.
“I was looking for clothes for my children and my nieces and nephews. Some of the stuff I got from Monsoon was half price, but I was disappointed with Debenhams because they only had a few items of children’s clothing on sale. I hardly bought anything there.”
But the committed sales shopper vowed to continue his quest for a bargain, pledging to be first in the queue for the Next sale today.
“Myself, my wife and nephew will be outside Next at 2am,” he said. “I am planning to spend about £1,000.”
But some were not as enthusiastic about the Boxing Day sales.
Full-time mum-of-four Donna Jones, 25, of Ely, Cardiff, said she was disappointed Next, Marks and Spencer and other shops, including the entire Capitol Shopping Centre on Queen Street were shut.
“It’s much quieter than I thought. All the big shops are shut. We came in to get a touch-screen mobile phone, but that wasn’t even on sale.”
Student Sean Rowlands, 21, of Barry, was also disappointed. He got up early yesterday to buy a PlayStation 3 computer games console at crisis-hit music, games and DVD shop Zavvi on Churchill Way, Cardiff.
The company called in administrators Ernst and Young on Christmas Eve after the group saw sales fall and were hit by the collapse of their main suppliers Entertainment UK, a division of Woolworths. But despite signs in the window advertising thousands of great deals, Sean said he saved just £50 on the PS3. “I expected to see some really good deals in Zavvi, but there weren’t any,” he said.
Out-of-town retailers also launched their sales yesterday. Some shoppers expressed disappointment.
Crowds flocked to Currys and PC World on Newport Road to grab flat-screen TVs and computers at up to 50% off.
But Ray Pearce, 52, of Penpedairheol, Hengoed, near Caerphilly, failed to secure a bargain. Having travelled to Cardiff to buy a Dell laptop computer for his son, he found it was not in the sale. “We are very disappointed,” he said.


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The rise of the super-connected SME
Business connectivity is essential for all sectors of the UK economy. Roughly 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are churned every day. A plethora of emerging technologies, including mobility, cloud and analytic solutions, are becoming critical to everyday business operations. As a result, we’re firmly setting our feet on the ground of the digital age, where connectivity is more critical than ever before.
Super-connected businesses have a clear advantage that allows them to grow and expand in the UK, Europe and beyond. Given small and medium-sized businesses account for 99.9% of private sector companies and provide 60% of private sector jobs – connecting SMEs is key to the success of the UK economy.
That’s why the government has been encouraging businesses to become super-connected. Figures published today reveal more than 40,000 small and medium businesses (SMEs) across the UK have benefited from its Broadband Connection voucher scheme.
This scheme, which Colt supports, helps SMEs get super-connected. They can apply for grants of up to £3,000 each to cover the costs of installing faster and better broadband. We would like to encourage all eligible businesses to apply before the available funds are exhausted – since the vouchers are issued on a first come, first serve basis.
To celebrate the rise of the super-connected SME, we invited a group of journalists to discuss the importance of business connectivity, and showed them the fibre network that lies beneath our pavements and makes it all possible.
What better location than Canary Wharf? The epicentre of London business, it is home to financial institutions, media companies and law firms – including SMEs looking to thrive in the digital economy.
The voucher scheme runs out on 31st March 2016, meaning SMEs looking to benefit from this scheme are encouraged to apply in the near future. To find out more about Colt’s network capabilities and how to apply for the voucher scheme, read more here.
What's your goal today?
1. Are you on the Colt IQ network?
Our network connects over 31,000 buildings worldwide powering companies such as Hitachi, Atos, Forbes, Arthur D Little, Brussels Airlines and thousands of others. Find out if you're Colt connected now.
2. Learn about digital infrastructure
We've written thousands of guides and white papers, regularly publish content on our blog and host regular events on everything from enterprise network connectivity, to cloud, digital transformation and the hybrid workforce.
3. Join our team
To learn more about joining our team of over 5000 people around the world, and to browse our current open roles visit https://careers.colt.net/.


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Mack Dealer Vanguard Truck Centers Invests $23 Million in New State-of-the Art Houston Dealership
GREENSBORO, NC (Feb. 18, 2021) – Vanguard Truck Centers recently opened a new dealership in Houston, investing $23 million in the facility to offer customers increased service and uptime support.
Vanguard now operates 20 different sites in six states, including Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas, The new 120,000 square-foot facility rests on 23 acres at 12935 Crosby Freeway, north of U.S. 90, and offers easy access for customers.
“Vanguard Truck Centers has been an outstanding partner to Mack, and it is all the more evident with this significant investment in this brand-new, state-of-the-art facility,” said Jonathan Randall, Mack Trucks senior vice president of North American sales and commercial operations. “This new dealership epitomizes the Mack® brand, and we are pleased that Vanguard continues to offer exceptional sales, service and support to Mack customers.”
Featuring 44 heated and air-conditioned service bays staffed by 42 technicians, half whom are master technicians, the dealership employs 151 people and offers new truck sales for Mack heavy-duty and the new Mack MD Series medium-duty vehicles, used truck sales, leasing and rental, service and financing and insurance.
The Vanguard Houston site is a Certified Uptime Dealer, meaning the dealership fulfilled superior service and support requirements, including offering dedicated bays for repairs requiring less than four hours.
Vanguard Houston also is CNG-ready and will service and support the Mack LR Electric refuse model.
“We believe our new Houston location provides a best-in-class experience for our employees and customers, through significant capacity expansion and facility design excellence, said Tom Ewing, president and CEO of Vanguard Truck Centers. “We’re excited about the investment, and we look forward to working alongside Mack Trucks to continue our growth in the Houston region.”
A four-lane drive-up check-in area protects drivers from poor weather conditions, and the spacious parking lot easily accommodates customer, truck and trailer parking. Employees have access to roomy locker rooms, showers and break rooms, as well as a training center that can accommodate both internal and external meetings and events.
The Vanguard Houston dealership offers more than $8 million in parts inventory, and a parts service counter that is easily accessible and comfortable for customers. A dedicated regional call center that offers support 24/7, and parts delivery with a citywide dispatch are available at the facility. The 45,000 square-foot parts warehouse features a mezzanine level where parts are stored for easy access, and customers can easily order parts through Mack PartsASIST, Mack’s recently launched parts ordering platform.
Offering an expansive driver’s lounge with theater seating, work areas and free Wi-Fi.
Hours of operation are 7 a.m. to midnight Central Time Monday through Friday, and 8 to 5 p.m. Saturday.
CAPTION: Vanguard Truck Centers recently opened a new dealership in Houston, investing $23 million in the facility to offer customers increased service and uptime support.


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With the Aarogya Setu app, India has shown the way, says the World Bank
NEW DELHI: India has stolen a march on other global tech giants by launching the app that significantly aids in contact tracking and slows the spread of the dreaded Covid-19 pandemic with multilateral experts and agencies, calling it a useful innovation to stop the disease. extension.
Days after the app's launch, global tech companies Apple and Google said on Saturday that they were creating software on smartphones that would aid in contact tracking and would inform users if they were in contact with people infected with Covid-19. .
“India leads the way in contact tracking for Covid-19: privacy first by design, secure, robust and scalable to billions of users. I'm glad to see Apple and Google team up to develop contact tracking on Aarogya Setu lines, ”said NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant on Twitter, labeling Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
India leads contact tracking for COVID-19: privacy first by design, secure, robust and scalable to billio ... https://t.co/rIAYteUybr - Amitabh Kant (@ amitabhk87) 1586608665000
Citing the example of the app, a World Bank report released Sunday said that innovative solutions could go a long way in educating and tracking contagion among populations at large.
Digital technologies can also be used to monitor the spread of Covid-19. These largely voluntary initiatives have been successful in helping to combat the pandemic in East Asia. Incentives can also be provided to those who report symptoms. India recently launched an app, Aarogya Setu, which uses location data from people's smartphones to tell users if they've been around someone who tested positive for Covid-19, the World Bank's South Economic Focus report said.
“Privacy concerns can be addressed by legislating sunset clauses in tracking systems. The region is home to many poor and uneducated households who are nonetheless tech savvy, and innovative technology solutions could go a long way in educating and tracking contagion among the general population, the report said.
Kant said this was a world-class app intended to help curb the spread of the disease.
The app has been developed with a comprehensive Indian approach and has been made possible with a public-private partnership with the best experience, Kant told TOI.
More about Covid-19
The government has been trying to popularize the app and has explained that adequate precautions have been taken regarding privacy. Legal experts also said that there are three features that have been incorporated into Aarogya Setu to preserve privacy.
First, personal information is de-identified in the registry, so thereafter the app only uses a unique device identity to identify you, not your name or any other personal information. Second, the information the app collects, those with whom it comes in contact, and your location information is kept on the phone by default. It is only sent to NIC servers when it has come in contact with an infected person or when its probability of being infected is high, Rahula Matthan, a partner at legal consulting firm Trilegal, told TOI.
Finally, data collected by the app, both data that remains on your device and data that has been uploaded to servers, is regularly deleted, Matthan said.


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Iris, the independent integrated agency, has been appointed to handle the £1m below-the-line spreads business for Dairy Crest following a four-month review.
Iris will work on brands including Utterly Butterly, Clover and St Ivel Gold after winning a place on the roster alongside incumbent Haygarth, which has been retained to handle the other half of the account – also believed to be worth £1m.
Dairy Crest invited a number of agencies to pitch for the business in November last year (MW November 2, 2006). The review was handled by Creative Brief, but Grey London’s hold on the advertising business was not affected by the pitch.
Dairy Crest group brand manager Laura Downey says: "This year will be an exciting period of development and it was vital we got the right agency partner on board."
Dairy Crest’s previous below-the-line activity has included sponsorship of wing-walking display team the "Utterly Butterlys" – named after its spread brand.
In September last year, the company sold off its own-brand cheese business to First Milk, the farmer-owned dairy company, in a deal understood to be worth £61.9m.
Dairy Crest’s portfolio includes spreads Country Life, Vitalite and Willow; yoghurt drink Frijj and cheeses Cathedral City, Hartington and Over the Moon. It also develops and markets chilled yoghurt and dessert products for Yoplait as part of a joint venture with the company.
Last month, Dairy Crest appointed ex-Somerfield group logistics and IT director Martin Oakes as executive managing director for its dairies division, replacing Mark Allen who stepped up as chief executive of the company.


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Remember the viral “pink sauce” that took TikTok and Twitter by storm in July 2022?
Fluorescent Seasoning, which amassed millions of TikTok views when it was first mentioned on the app in June 2022, will roll out in more than 4,300 Walmart stores across the U.S. after the sauce’s creator, Chef Pii. I plan to Partnered with Dave’s Gourmet LLC.
This comes nearly six months after the source became embroiled in a dispute over product safety and distribution.
After Pink Sauce went viral in June, Chef Pii (@chef.pii) shipped out bottles of the product from his online store. But as Passion Fruit previously reported, concerns and complaints were soon inundated.
Some viewers noted that the sauce had no nutritional labeling in previous videos. Others expressed concern that the product could look like it was cooked in a home kitchen and range in color from hot pink to baby pink. Customers who reportedly received damaged or damaged items were also complaining.
“I think you can’t go wrong when you’re great, but I mean, yes. My team is working quickly to fix the problem,” said Passionfruit in July 2022. Chef Pii said in an interview with “There have been some delays in entering the facility, etc. There have been shipping issues. However, we are working quickly to fix all issues.”
According to a press release provided to Passionfruit by a Dave’s Gourmet spokesperson, this is where hot sauce brands come in.
“Chef Pee and Dave’s Gourmet have entered into an exclusive partnership, with Dave’s Gourmet taking responsibility as the exclusive supplier and distributor of Pink Sauce,” the press release reads. “Chef Pea continues to drive social media and other aspects of Pink Sauce.”
The product is produced “on a commercial scale” in accordance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines for safe quality food, the release added. [SQF] Certified facility.
But that doesn’t mean Chef Pea isn’t busy. Vegan and vegetarian versions of the infamous sauce are also now being produced after Chef Piy developed the recipe “in Miami’s kitchen,” according to the release.
The Pink Sauce will cost $9.99 and will be available exclusively at Walmart through July 2023.
Passion Fruit reached out to Chef Pea and Walmart via email for comment, but did not hear back in time for this article’s publication.
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*First published: January 13, 2023 at 2:01 PM CST
Charlotte is a chronic online culture journalist with byline articles for Insider, Rolling Stone, Dazed, VICE, The Independent and other media.


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Initially focused on refrigeration parts, the store was soon purchased by John Shank, who also established the original Johnstone Supply catalog, which remains a comprehensive parts and supplies resource, with both printed and online versions.
This year marks Johnstone Supply Inc.'s 50th year in business. Calling itself "the largest cooperative HVACR wholesale parts and products distributor in the country," Johnstone plans to celebrate with customers, vendors and staff throughout the year, culminating with a special 50th anniversary event at its 2003 annual meeting.
Shank grew the business through three decades and established more than a dozen company stores and 20 franchises. Before retiring, Shank was determined to pass along the company's success to its store owners and staff, and the company was restructured to become a cooperative.
By 1981, Johnstone had completed the transition into a cooperative business, owned entirely by store owners who share resources for marketing and buying.
Johnstone Supply now has more than 270 stores nationwide, offering more than 20,000 parts from 400 manufacturers. The company's two regional distribution centers cover more than 30,000 square feet. The cooperative continues to add new member stores each year, and in 2002 posted record store-sales growth.
"The Johnstone 50th anniversary is a great opportunity for us to celebrate and reinforce the core company values of service, quality, and teamwork that have made Johnstone so successful through the years," said Johnstone President Gary Daniels.


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ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can generate human-like text in response to simple keywords put in by users, has been causing quite the stir since its launch in November last year. With an almost non-existent marketing plan, the model hit one million users in less than five days of its launch, according to a tweet by OpenAI's co-founder Sam Altman. It has also attracted the attention of tech company Microsoft who reportedly plans to invest US$10 billion into OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, according to Semafor.
Today, the model continues to be talked about extensively by educators, marketers, technologists, journalists and writers who are all excitedly testing the platform’s almost human-like ability to produce well-researched content in seconds, and contemplate what it will mean for the future of many writing-based roles and for the people who rely on them.
It seems like ChatGPT has gripped our attention and pivoted the marketing conversations, in the same fashion that the Metaverse did earlier last year. Yesterday, MARKETING INTERACTIVE broke down what exactly what ChatGPT is and spoke to industry players to find out if they thought it could actually revolutionise the way we study and work as well as what it means for the world of advertising.
Today, we are taking a deeper dive into ChatGPT and looking at how the model will impact and influence the future of marketing, and uncover the mystery as to why it exploded in the scene.
Does ChatGPT have the power to revolutionise the ad industry?
Industry players MARKETING-INTERACTIVE spoke to say that while marketers are looking to experiment and play around with the technology, at this stage, not many are actually thinking of it being a revolutionary factor for their jobs
“Clearly, ChatGPT has the industry agog. Every marketer worth her or his salt wants to experiment with it, and know what it can do for them. But I think we’re only at the dawn of AI for marketing, and ChatGPT will do for smart marketing what Facebook did for social media in the Oughts - make it mass and engaging to a wider set of marketers,” said Sandeep Joseph, the CEO and co-founder of Ampersand Advisory, a media agency in Malaysia.
He added that companies such as Google are ramping up their AI capabilities and that as more products become available, the more marketers will use them.
“There are many immediate quick wins today: social media calendar ideas, clever headlines, translations, chatbots for customer service. Search copy can be written, search ads can be generated in their hundreds rapidly, and much more. It’s not that AI will replace marketers, but rather smart marketing people using AI will dominate the rest,” he said.
Joseph’s argument that AI will work alongside marketers rather than overtake them is a sentiment that is echoed by many other professionals, who see the value of the system but also acknowledge its drawbacks.
“[While] ChatGPT, along with other similar language models, are capable of generating text that is human-like, they cannot replace jobs such as copywriting, journalism, and marketing entirely,” said Pramodh Rai, the CEO and co-founder of Cyber Sierra, a cyber security firm.
These advanced models can assist with first order tasks such as coming up with content ideas or helping to write certain kinds of content. However, excelling in the industry requires levels of creativity, critical thinking, and human understanding that language models cannot match for the foreseeable future, Rai explained.
He added that even ChatGPT requires human oversight and editing to ensure that the generated text suits goals such as accuracy, relevance and objectivity. However, that’s not to say that ChatGPT will not likely find a home in advertising in the near future.
“The best way is to leverage ChatGPT’s capabilities for your first draft, or to generate ideas. Then, apply a high-quality editorial process to create output which resonates with your audience,” said Rai.
“Likely the symbiotic relationship between humans and AI will grow significantly. What I shared is just the start, teams across the world will figure out compelling uses of ChatGPT and even build enduring businesses from here or certainly find ways to embed AI language models in their processes,” he continued.
Elina Peek-Lantz, managing director, Reprise Malaysia added that ChatGPT is a highly versatile application that boasts a wide range of benefits and features that are still being uncovered and explored.
“Its potential impact in increasing efficiency in various areas of marketing is undeniable. From crafting compelling meta descriptions and social media posts to creating in-depth product articles, ChatGPT is a good tool for content creation. Additionally, its ability to generate creative campaign ideas and suggest relevant influencers for brand partnerships makes it a valuable application to explore for any marketer looking to streamline their work,” she said.
The possibilities around misinformation
While ChatGPT has the potential to offer many benefits for communicators, creators and marketers, we are still at the nascent stages of these models and there is still a high probability of errors or biases, explained Jamshed Wadia, the vice chair of digital in APAC at Edelman. Other conversations to be had as an industry are the possibility of misinformation and potential issues related to copyright.
“It is essential for marketers to carefully consider the potential risks and ethical implications of using generative AI, and to take steps to mitigate those risks, such as ensuring that the training data is of high quality and free of errors and biases, and by being transparent about the use of generative AI in marketing effort,” he said.
He added that while we should be experimenting with AI tools, there is still a way to go for these models to mature and that when they do, they will play an imperative role in the communications, creation and marketing industry.
So why exactly is ChatGPT as popular as it is right now?
Currently, if you go to the ChatGPT site and attempt to try out the system for yourself, you are very likely to get a message saying that they system is too busy and to try again another time. This probably comes as no surprise considering that the model hit one million users in less than five days of its launch.
Meanwhile, according to social listening company CARMA, social conversation around ChatGPT has remained consistently high since the programme was first launched in early December. This indicates people remain curious about it. There remains so much conversation out there because the demand for ChatGPT content is still high, and netizens are creatively finding new ways to create content around it.
But with so little marketing, how did the platform gain so much attention? Word of mouth, say industry players, has been crucial to the growth.
Rai explained that the platform was well-received by early adopters and word-of-mouth recommendations helped to spread awareness quickly. “This is also leveraging the larger trends of the increasing popularity of language models, AI in general and compounded by the fact we live in a social era where sharing widely is so simple,” he shared.
He added that a high level of interest already exists in the platform from influential individuals and companies in related industries. Additionally, the platform’s impressiveness made it extremely sharable.
“Users found the tool to be useful for a variety of tasks, many of which resulted in ‘wow’ moments that moved people to share online. These led to more coverage in news and other media outlets, which helped ChatGPT gain a large user base quickly.”
True enough, it would appear that consumers are simply excited about the possibilities and potential of the system. “I think consumers are excited - especially white-collar professionals given AI has been a buzzword for years,” said Joseph.
“For example, Ampersand Advisory started its AI division, Ampersand Alpha, in 2020. Publicis talked about AI-driven Marcel in 2018, and launched with Microsoft in 2020. It’s an idea that has been around without captivating the mind: a simple, aesthetic, uncluttered user interface can drive adoption, like ChatGPT has done now and just like the iPhone did for touchscreen phones decades ago,” he said, adding:
AI is here and now, and the sooner we embrace it, the more productive we can be,” he concluded.
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It’s a sad day for many generations of “Toys R Us Kids”. Six months after filing for bankruptcy in the US (and one month after filing in the UK), Toys R Us announced will be closing all 900 stores across the United States and the UK.
Toys R Us is one of, if not the largest single retailer for yoyo brands like Duncan, YoYoFactory, and Yomega so this is going to be a huge hit for those companies. Gift cards will be honored in the US for the next 30 days, and we expected liquidation pricing to go into effect soon. It will be a good time to pick up plenty of great yoyos for cheap for your local club, but that’s about the only silver lining we can find here.


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Microsoft Bleeds Share of the market as Chromebooks Outsell Macs for the First Time
PC sales boomed throughout 2021, sending semiconductor earnings soaring. One company with little to cheer about, at least so far as its conventional Windows clients are concerned, is Microsoft. For many years, we’ve talked about the “PC industry” and also the “Windows PC” industry as though they were synonymous. New data on 2021 PC shipments suggests we shouldn’t be.
As Emil Protalinski writes for GeekWire, “This can be a big win for Google along with a warning for both Apple and Microsoft. It also signals to app and game developers that Chrome OS can't be prevented.” Data points quoted within the paragraph here are by IDC.
In Q1 2021, Apple held 5.8 percent market share, Google held 5.3 %, and Windows had 87.5 percent share of the market. In Q4 2021, Microsoft’s share of the market slipped to simply 76.7 percent. Apple had 7.7 percent share in Q4, and Chromebooks claimed no less than 14.4 percent of the market. Full-year figures show Microsoft declining to 80.Five percent of the market, down from 85.4 %, with Chrome OS claiming 10.8 percent and Apple as much as 7.5 percent.
The full-year numbers aren’t as dramatic because the quarterly figures, but they still show Chrome OS claiming 4.4 percentage points of share of the market (it held 6.4 % from the market in 2021). Other analysts agree; Omdia’s own data shows Chromebook sales rising by 1.67x in 2021 as well.
Analysts don’t think the Chromebook trend will slow down. This is part of why ARM might be proving itself to be an authentic threat to Intel and AMD with what has traditionally been thought of as the center from the x86 market. The M1 has demonstrated that custom ARM silicon can beat x86 at its own game, but the x86 legacy software market is still the proverbial 800-pound gorilla within the room. Attempting to best x86 on Windows means building a high-performance ARM chip along with a top-notch emulator. It’s an additional barrier that helps keep the PC market and also the mobile phone markets technologically separate. This specific barrier, however, is only as strong as Windows’ share of the market.
Chromebooks don’t carry exactly the same expectations around legacy software support that the Windows laptop does. That enables ARM and x86 to fight on more even terms. In reality, all of this presumes that the company such as Qualcomm, Samsung, or Nvidia will build a leg CPU core that can compete with x86. Such CPU is still a few years away, best-case. x86 CPUs are presently the preferred Chromebook solution for anybody who uses a higher-performing system, and that’s not likely to change in just the following couple of years. But if ARM CPUs show a sustained capability to beat past x86 chips, we’re going to see more chip designers interested in entering that market. Once they do, they won’t necessarily focus on Windows, where the entrenched software market makes beating x86 as hard as it may often be. They’ll focus on Chromebooks, where x86 enjoys a performance advantage but lacks a four-decade software library to anchor it.
Windows, obviously, will stay its own titanic force — nobody expects the OS to simply collapse — but it’s clear that Intel and AMD could be fighting on the shrinking pie when the two companies can’t maintain Chromebook market share. Today, obviously, all of this is theoretical, but that’s the way the semiconductor market works. It’s the CPUs on drawing boards today that’ll be defining the performance market 3-4 years from now. Today, AMD and Intel don't have any problem. Four years from now, it could be a very different story. Microsoft’s own decision to transition from defining itself in terms of Windows and towards a cloud-centric future makes a lot of sense in the face of numbers like these. Microsoft really wants to have other business segments to speak about by the time Chromebooks are really carving into its share of the market.
It’s clear since the long period of tranquility in the PC market with the 2010s, where nothing much interesting happened, was less a terminal decline and more of a pause. There’s a (relatively) new OS eating market share along with a new CPU architecture. AMD has become a competitor for Intel over the entire x86 space simultaneously that AI and ML accelerators are redefining the CPU’s role within the larger system architecture.


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Cable TV cord cutting intensifies in Southwest Florida
This man’s “cutting the cord” epiphany happened last month, when he became the latest Southwest Florida TV watcher to modernize.
“I had enough,” said Jon Romine, 37 and a Cape Coral resident. He had been subscribing to DirecTV satellite service and had Comcast cable TV prior to that. “I was going through the channels, and I wasn’t watching 90 percent of them. I was thinking, ‘Why am I doing this?’”
Romine had been paying $136 a month for DirecTV satellite, plus $89 a month for Comcast Internet service. He kept the Internet, which is needed for digital streaming, a trend that has been sweeping the nation and Southwest Florida. He cut the satellite cord in favor of a $35 monthly package with Playstation Vue, which provides content he streams over his Roku device. These are just two of many disruptors to the cable and satellite TV industry.
“It saves me $100 a month,” Romine said.
Traditional TV subscribers through cable or satellite peaked at 103.1 million across the United States in 2012. The number is projected to slide to 96 million at the end of this year, according to Yahoo Finance.
The numbers are tougher to track by region, as Comcast, CenturyLink and other TV providers would not disclose them. But there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest the pace of cutting the cord is quickening in Southwest Florida.
As cable and satellite subscribers shrink, the number of Roku owners has risen to 14 million users in the U.S., the company said. About 6 percent of them live in Florida. Roku is one of the devices used to stream TV from the Internet.
“When is the point that most people become cord cutters? Sometime in the next five years,” said Luke Bouma, who turned the craze into a career. Based near Austin, Texas, he founded cordcuttersnews.com three years ago.
When Bouma, 34, launched the site, his server crashed with 62,000 visitors in one day. Bouma recognized an audience for cutting the cord news.
“In the first quarter of 2017, 2.1 percent of all traditional TV subscribers dropped their subscriptions,” Bouma said. “Every quarter, it’s getting bigger and bigger. We’re kind of seeing a snowball effect right now.”
Cutting the cord isn’t just a trend for millennials and younger viewers, Bouma said. Plenty of baby boomers and Generation Xers are moving to digital streaming, too.
A third of Roku users are over 55, and about 15 percent are over 65.
“Half of my readers are 41 and over,” Bouma said. “Half are female. People were saying for a long time that this is what kids are doing. But in reality, most people 24 and under are watching cable TV in their college dorms, or when they are at home, their parents pay for TV. It’s actually older people who are cord cutters.”
Fort Myers residents Mark and Jill Pope, ages 48 and 47, became part of the snowball effect last year. They were watching TV at a house where one of Jill’s friends had cut cable in favor of Roku and Sling TV, a digital content provider. The Popes, parents of a 7-year-old daughter, did the same thing.
“I’m completely satisfied,” Jill Pope said. “All in all, the savings are tremendous. I’m saving $30 a month. That’s an extra couple of T-bone steaks.
“As far as the quality of the reception of the TV, I just don’t see that it’s any different. If anything, I would say that it’s better.”
Setting the trend
Anthony Wood, who founded Roku in 2002, foresaw the shift to digital streaming TV. Anthony is the inventor of the DVR and founded Replay TV. He also served as the vice president of Internet TV at Netflix. Roku is his sixth company (Roku means six in Japanese).
Netflix, originally a mail-and-return DVD service, began streaming content May 20, 2008.
“He’s a very techy guy,” said Matthew Anderson, chief marketing officer for Roku. “What he realized was as the Internet speeds got better and better, and as the computer chip prices got lower and lower, it could be extremely affordable.
“We can choose from 5,000 channels. People are very value conscious. With Roku, there’s no monthly equipment fee. It gives you a lot more control. It’s more on your terms.”
Tyler and Kari Mitchell of south Fort Myers each said they love their Roku device and Playstation Vue subscription, which has helped them save more than $80 a month.
“What Comcast does, is they try to put you in cheap rates and slowly creep that up, which is very frustrating, because you have to keep on top of that,” Tyler Mitchell said. “At some point, I just got tired of it. I looked into the new online streaming TVs.
“You know exactly what you’re going to pay, and you can cancel any time.”
Battling the trend
Executives at Comcast and CenturyLink have been battling the loss of subscribers by improving their services and aligning with some of the disruptors in order to keep their TV clients.
Those subscription losses have been felt by networks such as ESPN, which laid off about 100 journalists earlier this year. ESPN, a channel typically bundled in basic cable packages, takes a financial hit almost every time a customer cuts the cord.
Not all of the numbers are dire for cable. Comcast reported adding 429,000 customers in the first quarter of 2017 vs. 2016.
“Competition makes us better,” said Tom Zemaitis, vice president of marketing for Comcast’s Florida region. “So the company is looking at, how can we integrate this? So Comcast got together with Netflix. And you’d think, these are two competing entities. How can they work together?”
When Comcast launched its new Xfinity 1 console last year, it integrated Netflix into the interface so Netflix subscribers easily could access those shows. Comcast also added a voice-activated remote control. It will unveil later this year an alliance with Google that will allow home viewers to display YouTube videos on their big-screen TVs at home.
“At Comcast, we adapt and change and move forward very aggressively,” Zemaitis said. “We don’t sit back.”
Embracing the trend
Last year, CenturyLink and Comcast each partnered with competitor Roku, allowing their streaming devices to be compatible with Roku.
“In the 1970s, the new thing was called HBO,” said Steven Sklar, CenturyLink vice president of video strategy and development. “In the 1980s, the new, new thing was called MTV and ESPN and the Food Network. Over the last 10 years or so, the new thing has been more on the web side, like Netflix and Amazon Prime. So we’re trying to bring all of that together in one place and have the best of the best.”
CenturyLink, which paid an undisclosed sum for the naming rights of CenturyLink Sports Complex, spring training home of the Minnesota Twins, considered Southwest Florida a marquee market, Sklar said.
The company is in the testing phase of “4K,” projected to be the next generation of home TV viewing, a picture quality that’s four times better than standard high definition. When it’s ready for trial, Lee County is in line to be one of the test markets.
“It’s my job to eat, drink and sleep all things television,” Sklar said. “I’m aware of all the trends and consumer adaptation. The types of devices they’re using. What’s hot. What’s not. And so, this is a tricky business.
“If you look back on the past 10-15 years, it’s really about giving the customer more control over the experience. You can watch the content when you want to watch it now.
“Over the last three-to-five years, our focus has been on streaming and enabling smartphones and tablets. And we have more than 200 channels our customers can watch on those devices.”
Bucking the trend
When Bill Compitello moved to Cape Coral earlier this year, he did the opposite of what many other TV watchers are doing.
Compitello called Comcast not to cancel but to subscribe.
Compitello decided to buck the trend because having had Verizon, Brighthouse Networks cable and DirecTV satellite service in other markets in the past, he preferred Comcast. He said he didn’t feel comfortable cutting the cord or going back to satellite.
“Let me put it to you this way,” said Compitello, 64 and originally from Old Bridge, New Jersey. “I can remember as a kid having a TV that looked like a piece of furniture. You had tubes in the TV.
“I also remember going from black and white TV, back in the ‘60s, to color. One of my rich neighbors down the block, they were one of the first to get a color TV. I went over to his house and watched color TV for the first time.”
Compitello said he understood why people are cutting cable. One of his daughters did exactly that.
“Now, when you start looking at some of these packages – cable TV is not cheap,” Compitello said. “But from a service standpoint and what they give you, I just think it can’t be beat.”
Cord cutting 101
TV viewers need four things to cut the cable or satellite cord and switch to digital streaming:
Internet service. Comcast and CenturyLink are the most popular locally.
A device for streaming. Roku has about a 50 percent share of the market. Apple TV, Android TV (owned by Google), Amazon Fire are other options.
Streaming monthly subscription. These range from $8 to $35 or more depending on the channels you want. Netflix, HULU and Sling TV, Amazon Prime, Playstation Vue, DirectTV Now and HULU Live are some of the options.
A digital antenna. This is recommended to access local channels like NBC-2, WINK, Fox 4 and ABC-7. There are 28 channels available for free in Southwest Florida with a digital antenna.
Why I kept cable
My Comcast cable bill recently spiked from $155 to $177 a month. That’s when I began investigating cutting the cord.
But my wife and I enjoy HBO, and I enjoy sports, and by the time I began adding Internet cost plus startup costs for a Roku combined with the monthly fees for all of the channels we enjoy, I bucked the trend.
I bought a modem compatible with Comcast for $60 at Radio Shack, which lowered my cable bill by $10 a month. Then I called Comcast and threatened to quit. I went from one supervisor to another and then to a third. The phone call lasted 90 minutes.
In the end, Comcast offered me all new equipment, including the Xfinity 1 console and voice-activated remote (which is pretty cool). It also gave me Starz and Cinemax, which we did not have before, and let me keep HBO and all of my favorite sports channels.
My monthly bill dipped from $177 to $135. The only con: I’m locked into a two-year deal and have to pay $10 for every remaining month to get out of it. We’re saving $42 a month. Could I have saved a few dollars more? Maybe. But the convenience and comfort level made it worth it.


text: AARP is releasing their latest RxPrice Watch report today. The big news won’t be that prices are going up (everyone knows that), rather, it will be just how quickly they’re going up. According to Federal Government Bureau of Labor Statistics statistics, inflation increased prices by 16.63% from 2006 through 2012. During that same period, an average bundle of prescription drugs for senior citizens increased 103.57%. In other words, the price of prescription drugs increased more than six times faster than inflation, and that same rate continued in 2013. As of this writing, the report isn’t out, but you should be able to google for it later today. In the meantime, you can get some additional analysis from this AP article.